Nostalgia & History > What switch heater?

These scenes were filmed around the area of Gorham, Illinois, on Union Pacific's former MoPac Chester and Chicago (since renamed Mt. Vernon) Subdivisions in January, 1992. No switch heaters were to be found on a snowy morning, and maintainers were thawing things out the old fashioned way.

In this era of cookie-cutter ES and 70 series power, enjoy the look back at an earlier cookie-cutter (we thought at the time) era.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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the fuel cans were filled with kerosene/diesel and have extension rods with special drip nozzles with an adjusting flow handles to allow the flow to be regulated from a full flow to a slow drip ... in sub freezing temps ya gotta be quick cause as soo. as it melts it freezes ...

Posted from Android

we don't need no stinkin' switch heaters. Kerosene works fine!

My experience with switch heaters was melting snow and ice off switches and retarders at the Indiana Harbor Belt Blue Island hump yard in sub-zero weather in the early 1970s, using a flame-producing device comprised of a long pipe fed by an air line and a kerosene line. Kind of like a low-grade version of a military flamethrower. Did the trick, but you had to be careful on aiming the thing.

I was half expecting to see kerosene soaked rope laid along the rail to heat it. I know track crews use that technique to heat rail to pull it back together in case of a broken rail. In the first scene of the passing train I was impressed with everything being coated in snow, the signal bridge, telephone poles, pretty much everything that was stationary... Good video!

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

mojaveflyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was half expecting to see kerosene soaked rope
> laid along the rail to heat it. I know track crews
> use that technique to heat rail to pull it back
> together in case of a broken rail. In the first
> scene of the passing train I was impressed with
> everything being coated in snow, the signal
> bridge, telephone poles, pretty much everything
> that was stationary... Good video!


they're not trying to expand the rail just melt the ice and snow on the rail plates and rods ....

Posted from Android

Aroma therapy, the heavy duty edition.
...Lorenzo